I think what "turn about a point" exercises are supposed to do is train pilots to fly traffic patterns, which are pretty much the same thing, with other air traffic, snarlly controllers, and people chatting in Spanish on the CTAF frequency as complicating factors.
I read of a bush pilot who came up with a way of making deliveries to customers where there was no suitable place to land. He rigged up a container that enabled him to lower it to the ground from the wingtip while he circled.
But while the gunship concept proved itself in Vietnam, we lost an AC-130 during Operation Desert Shield. When the Iraqis tried moving down the coast into SA, an AC-130 was firing at them in broad daylight. Using an aircraft like that in daylight, against an adversary equipped with supersonic jets, SAMs, plenty of AAA, etc. sounds like insanity to me.